Demari: Syrjinnällä ei sijaa hallituspolitiikassa

Comment:An editorial in Demari states that the Social Democratic Party should not form part of a government that supports exclusion and hostility towards immigrants, refugees and lowering development aid. The editorial of the daily of the Social Democratic Party is like a whiff of fresh air after the PS scored its historical election victory on Sunday.

Like all of the traditional political parties in Finland, the Social Democrats have a lot of sensible veteran politicians among their ranks. Didn’t the party play an important role in building Finland’s welfare state?

The Social Democrats are divided along two camps concerning immigration: Eero Heinäluoma-Jutta Urpilainen, the current leadership that brought us maassa maan tavala, and those who disagree. Former foreign minister Erkki Tuomioja belongs to the latter camp.

Tuomioja is interviewed in a separate article in Demari on his views on the ongoing talks to form government with Kokoomus and PS.

As we know, there are anti-immigration representatives in all Finnish parties but not as many and as outspoken as among the PS.

Caving in to xenophobia and ultra-conservative values that encourage gender and social inequality in our society is not the path that Finland should take. Fortunately Kokoomus and the Social Democrats are not in favor of building a PS romantic problem-free all-white Finland that never existed and where post-modern art is scorned.

The threat to the PS will not come from abroad but from the political monster that Soini has created. Feeding that monster will be its simplistic and hostile views of minorities, women and the outside world.

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I also read an interview with Tuomioja in Hufvudstadsbladet that was a breath of fresh air. But I suspect, also false hope. Our political parties will seemingly go an extremely long way to be in a government. Sadly, we lack the great names of the past who would not have been so easily swayed by populism. We have quite a poor crop of political leaders in this 9th decade of our independence.

Populism has become a major issue in most so-called democratic countries: many politicians will resort to vague promises or even borrow items from another party’s agenda, rather than stand behind their platform and risk defeat in an election. This, IMHO, is the biggest threat to democracy, because all parties start to sound the same and very few of them has a platform that clearly differentiates itself from the other parties. Further complicating this is the fact that each party has candidates who are complete rogues, who would fit much better within another party, and who make their party’s image even more confusing. A good example of this is Ville Rydman, who would fit perfectly well in PS, but who seriously tarnishes Kokoomus’ liberal image.